Cerebral Information Processing during Sleep: Evolutionary and Ecological Approaches

Based on the analysis of extensive clinical, psychophysiological and experimental data, the author comes to the conclusion that the widespread idea of the cerebral information processing during sleep related to previous wakefulness and necessary for the formation of long-term memory and other cognit...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Journal of evolutionary biochemistry and physiology 2023-03, Vol.59 (2), p.313-324
Main Author: Kovalzon, V. M.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Animal Physiology
Biochemistry
Biomedical and Life Sciences
Cerebral cortex
Cognitive ability
Evolutionary Biology
Hypotheses
Information processing
Life Sciences
Long term memory
NREM sleep
Reflexes
REM sleep
Reviews
Sleep
Sleep and wakefulness
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Summary:Based on the analysis of extensive clinical, psychophysiological and experimental data, the author comes to the conclusion that the widespread idea of the cerebral information processing during sleep related to previous wakefulness and necessary for the formation of long-term memory and other cognitive resources of the brain is inapplicable. This hypothesis is poorly consistent with a range of data regarding both slow wave (non-REM) and paradoxical (REM) sleep. The state of the cerebral cortex in non-REM sleep is more adequately described by the classical term “diffuse cortical inhibition.” As for REM sleep, here, too, the very intensive work of the brain does not play any adaptive role (at least for an adult organism)—information is processed, figuratively speaking, “idle.” All the vast experimental and clinical material accumulated in recent decades speaks in favor of the “ecological” hypothesis, which considers sleep as periods of “adaptive inactivity” of the body, increasing its survival in a hostile environment. The function of sleep consists in a radical restructuring of all waking reflexes for the normal course of such periods.
ISSN:0022-0930
1608-3202
DOI:10.1134/S0022093023020011